Friday, July 30, 2010

Hi folks, please see below for the information on 2 exciting upcoming seminars:

Entrepreneurial Training Seminar

Pennsylvania CareerLink Lehigh Valley is hosting a FREE Informational Program on Courses to Start Your Own Business on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 from 10:00 A.M. until 12:00 P.M. at 1601 Union Boulevard, Allentown, PA. This seminar will focus on how to start your own business and will present programs available through Lehigh University’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Community Action Development Corporations (CADC) of Allentown and Bethlehem, Business Enterprise Center of Lehigh Carbon Community College, and the Office of Minority and Women-Owned Businesses of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation. In addition, SCORE, Counselors to America’s Small Business and The Entrepreneur’s Source will present how their organizations assist those looking to start their own business.

This FREE entrepreneurial training informational seminar is directed at people in the greater Lehigh Valley who are thinking about starting a business or expanding their current business in the Lehigh Valley.

These organizations are partnering with the Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board, Inc., the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, and PA CareerLink Lehigh Valley to provide this FREE seminar.

To learn more about Lehigh University’s Small Business Development Center’s on-line and instructor-led training, Community Action Development Corporation’s 20-week business-training seminar, courses available at the Business Enterprise Center at Lehigh Carbon Community College, and the support assistance SCORE, The Entrepreneur’s Source and the Office of Minority and Women-Owned Businesses provides you will want to attend this informational seminar.

U.S. Congressman Charlie Dent will host seminars on Small Business Financing Options, presented by the U. S. Small Business Administration, on August 23rd and 24th.

Are you looking for financing to start or expand your small business? If so, come to this FREE workshop to learn all about financial assistance programs from Federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and national and local lenders.

Hello everyone! We have a guest blog entry on one of our favorite Chamber topics: networking. This entry comes to us courtesy of Bob Friedman, the king of networking himself. Bob works as an Aflac Independent Representative and is also Chair of our Ambassadors group.

If there is anyone on this planet that you should take networking advice from, its Bob.

Enjoy!

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Do you want a network of endless referrals? Sure you would, so follow me into my world and let me share my Golden Rule of Networking. I live by this rule and have 30 years of success to prove it. Let this be your “Red Letter Day” as a starting point to build solid relationships and take you to new heights.

Networking has traditionally been defined as “the cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships.” But there’s an even more fundamental premise that underlines this definition—what serious networkers call the Golden Rule of Networking:

“All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to the people they know, like and trust.”

Having that one sentence in mind whenever you meet or transact with anyone will keep you ahead of the game. Why? Because if two people have a product, price, expertise or any other factor that are pretty much equal, then the sales or business person who has personally won over the prospect or referral will get their business.

Today’s world of sucessful selling is relationship building…let me be very clear about that.

People want to do business this way…can you blame them? Prospects are concerned about being schemed, scammed and not being treated right. They want to do business with people they know, like and trust, and they must trust you before you ever get the opportunity to do business with them. Truly, it’s the very fact that they trust you that allows you the opportunity to try for their business in the first place!

As Stephen M.R. Covey says in his book The Speed of Trust, “Trust is the one thing that changes everything!”

You can communicate trustworthiness by constantly and consistently adding value to people’s lives. You inspire and communicate trustworthiness by actually caring more about helping them than in wondering how they can help you. Thomas Powers, author of the book, Networking for Life, calls this the suspension of self interest. Suspension, not forgoing-there is a big difference and a topic for another day. When you have this giving attitude and continually ask, “How can I add value to this person’s life” you will then naturally create relationships of know, like and trust.

When all else is equal, (or close to equal) the “know, like and trust” feeling towards you will be the difference and provide that competitive edge you seek.

So let this be your day…develop relationships that will result in your cultivating a network of endless referrals.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

If you are a Chamber Member, we are happy to help you advertise any job opening. Please E-mail a description and contact information to Mike Schlossberg at MikeS@lehighvalleychamber.org. We publish job openings every Thursday and are happy to help you find the talent that you are looking for!

CDBG Program Coordinator

Northampton County is currently accepting applications for a FT Community Development Block Grant Program Coordinator position in the Dept. of Community and Economic Development. Starting salary $35,345. Responsible for oversight of federal funding program. Position regularly interacts with gov't. officials, construction managers, and non profits; strong written and verbal communication skills required. Successful candidate will, at minimum, have Assoc. Degree with coursework in business or public administration, one (1) year of local governmental experience, and experience in grant administration and reporting. Experience managing federal grants for construction is preferred. Apply by 8/21/10 to NC Human Resources, 669 Washington St., Easton, PA 18042. Call Job Hotline 610-559-6840 or visit www.northamptoncounty.org for more details. E.O.E

Manager, Instructional Design
FT position providing leadership in the application of instructional design theories and methodologies to help faculty build and facilitate quality online and hybrid courses. Works closely with faculty to ensure their online and hybrid course content and assessments reflect best practices in online course design, accessibility standards, and copyright policies. Master’s degree in Instructional Design is required. Minimum 3-5 years experience as an instructional designer in an educational setting is strongly preferred. Demonstrated experience with the Quality Matters rubric and process, Blackboard, Elluminate Live, Web 2.0 technologies, and section 50 compliance is preferred. Salary is competitive and the benefits are excellent. Send letter, resume and names, addresses and phone numbers of 3 professional references to Human Resources, Northampton Community College, 335 Green Pond Road, Bethlehem, PA 18020, or email to hr@northampton.edu by 8/31/10. NCC is EEO/AA.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

In today’s era of instant-gratification social networking sites, e-mail can sometimes seem like a slow and outdated method of communicating with customers. The medium still has some advantages – its longer and customizable format allows for sending out more information (newsletters, promotions, surveys) than you can squeeze into 140 characters. If you really want to put e-mail to work for your business, then you should take a look at the e-mail tools offered by Emma Email Marketing. While their services can be a bit pricey, they do some gorgeous graphic design work that may be well worth the price to your business. Let’s face it, a few lines of text and some haphazard links can’t compare to something like this.

How it works:Once you sign up with Emma, you can create an e-mail layout using some of their premade designer elements, or even work one-on-one with an Emma designer to format the visual elements of your e-mail template. From there, you can set up your contact database (and even import some of your existing client databases/spreadsheets) and start communicating with your customers.

Features/benefits:- Personalized, unique layouts that help build your brand identity- E-mail scheduling and auto-response features- Automatic welcome/event e-mails (Happy Birthday, etc.)- Response tracking to see who is opening your e-mails and clicking links (graphs included – everybody loves graphs!)- E-mail surveys and forms, and track results- Archives of campaigns available for download and publishing (taking the e out of e-mail, in a way)

Pricing:Emma is a great service, but you have to be willing to spend for both a design package (one-time fee ranging from $99 to $399) and a monthly e-mail plan, starting at $30/month and increasing based on the volume of e-mail sent per month. This probably isn’t the most cost-effective way to go for small businesses that are just starting out, but larger firms may find that the benefits of improved customer relations will more than offset the costs. Full pricing schedule is available here.

Do you use e-mail to promote your business? Have you ever received a good e-mail discount from another business? Leave a comment and let us know!

Pennsylvania is among the finalists in the federal government's Race to the Top program, potentially qualifying it to receive up to $400 million in additional funding that can be used to help push educational reform and enhance student achievement. Republican Gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett appears to have reignited his earlier remarks about job openings in the state, noting in a recent statement to the press that newspapers were filled with help wanted ads.

If you look about halfway down the right-hand sidebar on our Twitter page, you will notice some “Lists” of Twitter feeds that the GLVCC is following. Lists are a great feature of Twitter - they are an easy way to narrow down your Twitter feed if you don’t want to see a huge jumble of updates from everyone that you are following. Once you create a list, (instructions here) you can select the tweeps (a slang term for accounts that follow you/you are following – Internet lingo gets pretty silly sounding sometimes) whose updates you would like to isolate. You can view the tweets from only the list members by clicking on the name of the list on the right-hand sidebar.

There are two major reasons why we decided to organize the accounts we follow on Twitter into lists, and why you should consider doing the same. First of all, we are currently following 1,050 feeds, which means there are tweets flying at us from every direction. It’s a lot of data to take in at once. Viewing updates on related topics in smaller segments helps us keep our heads above the constant flood of new information. Second, we made the new lists public (they can be made private, so only the list creator can view that particular set) to allow all of our followers to see the categories of tweets we are keeping our eye on. Our followers can narrow our feed down to topics of specific interest, and possibly discover some new users to follow through our account. Personally, I stumbled across several feeds devoted to goings-on in the Lehigh Valley, such as the aptly named SeeLehighValley. These feeds are now aggregated into our “lehigh-valley” list.

So, how did we sort our half-ton of followed accounts? Intern power, of course! I examined each feed for content (personal or strictly business?), manager (account under one person’s name, or representing an entire company), and frequency/currency of updates. Based on this analysis, I came up with 8 lists that cover big corporations, small companies, formal business information, informal day-to-day life in the Lehigh Valley, and more. Of course, as The Chamber follows more accounts, it will be sorting them into the lists. In the future, the current lists will most likely be rearranged, and new lists will be added to accommodate our ever-expanding Twitterverse. If you plan on keeping Twitter lists, you should do the same – regular account management is the key to thriving in the hyperactive and incredibly dynamic social media environment.

Are you using Twitter lists on your Twitter feed? Do you think they help you organize, or are they over-complicating the simplicity of the medium? Leave feedback here – or, better yet, tweet @GLVCC.

From Tony: “The BBRP one of the most critical components of our overall efforts to revitalize Main Street. We believe that the private sector must play a role in urban redevelopment and are proud to have put over $100,000 on the street for the BBRP and other related projects. We are committed to assisting our urban cores, both large and small, and the accreditation of the BBRP shows that urban revitalization is working in the LehighValley.”

From County Executive Stoffa:

“This recognition speaks volumes about the commitment of the volunteers. The program provides the tools, but it succeeds because of the vision and hard work of the community members.”

From County Executive Cunningham: "The Borough Business Revitalization Program has been a core component of LehighCounty's community development policy. Although bigger projects often get more attention, it's the slow and steady improvement and revitalization of our smaller downtowns that create a sense of community and economic advancement throughout the entire LehighValley. Having the state’s and now recognition at the national level for the LehighValley program's successes reinforces the fact that we have moved in the right direction."

Friday, July 23, 2010

Well, I know I said we wouldn't have an entry later today - just kidding! We are back with a big one.

Michelle Griffin-Young, the Chamber's Executive Vice President of Public Policy, testified in Harrisburg earlier this week. We were the only Chamber in Pennsylvania to be invited to testify. Michelle testified in favor of some of the Governor's proposals, but I'll let her speak in her own words. She was kind enough to write a note for the blog, so see below! If you want to read her testimony, click here.
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Hello everyone,

Yesterday in Harrisburg, on behalf of our Chamber, I joined the PA Chamber in testifying for the Senate Transportation Committee. We were the only Chamber invited by the Senate and were scheduled to immediately follow Governor Rendell’s testimony. I wanted to share the PCN (PA Cable News Network), The Morning Call, WAEB-AM790 and WFMZ-Ch.69 coverage we received. I’ve also attached the testimony in word format for your reading pleasure. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the issues, please let me know. A number of our Transportation Committee members provided input and guidance --I thank you all!!! Michelle

Then click on the second red "video" link, wait for it to load, and drag the cursor about 5 minutes in for our presentation.

WAEB-AM790 website coverage in addition to on-air coverage every half hour- AFTER GOVERNOR RENDELL'S APPEARANCE BEFORE THE STATE SENATE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, THE GREATER LEHIGH VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE'S MICHELLE GRIFFIN-YOUNG TOOK HER TURN. SHE SAYS THERE ARE SOME ASPECTS OF THE GOVERNOR'S PLAN TO RAISE MONEY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS THAT THE CHAMBER LIKES. "THE GOVERNOR'S PROPOSALS INCLUDE SOME THINGS WE COULD WORK WITH HIM ON," SAYS GRIFFIN-YOUNG. AMONG THEM THE IDEA OF INCREASING FEES ON VEHICLE REGISTRATIONS AND DRIVERS LICENSES. GRIFFIN-YOUNG SAYS THE CHAMBER MORE THAN LIKELY WOULD NOT SUPPORT THE IDEA OF TAX THE PROFITS OF OIL COMPANIES. SHE DOUBTS CHAMBER MEMBERS WOULD BACK THE IDEA OF SINGLING OUT ONE SPECIFIC INDUSTRY FOR ADDITIONAL TAXES.

Governor Rendell is making a major plea to Pennsylvania's Senate Transportation Committee. The governor's asking lawmakers to take swift action to find funding for the state's roads and bridges. He testified that the minimum lawmakers could do would be to find a way to fill the 472-million dollar funding gap left by the failed tolling plan for I-80. But he's asking lawmakers to do more... and he pitched a series of revenue raising ideas.A representative from the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce testified after the governor... and she echoed his message. (YOUNG video): “Reasonable user fees are something that the Chamber is definitely willing to discuss. Nobody wants to see a gas tax increase, but quite frankly we have to do something.” Tonight at 5:30 -- WFMZ's Melissa Fullerton will have much more on today's hearing.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

If you are a Chamber Member, we are happy to help you advertise any job opening. Please E-mail a description and contact information to Mike Schlossberg at MikeS@lehighvalleychamber.org. We publish job openings every Thursday and are happy to help you find the talent that you are looking for!

Secretary/Receptionist
PT (29.5 hrs/wk, afternoons) at NCC’s Fowler Family Southside Center location in the Healthcare Education Department. This position will entail working with department directors and program managers in regard to operations and logistics for credit and non-credit courses; updating of existing data bases; answering phones; filing; and other general secretarial duties. Must be proficient in MS Office skills including Access. Strong multi-tasking ability along with aptitude to communicate verbally, through e-mail and via phone is required. Excellent customer service skills in representing NCC to the community. Bilingual a plus. Flexible to fit into existing team and processes will be essential. Associate Degree preferred. Send resume to Judy Rex, Director Healthcare Education, Fowler Center, Northampton Community College, 511 East Third Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015, or email to jrex@northampton.edu by 7/26/10. NCC is EEO/AA.

Notetakers
PT – Needed for students with disabilities. Must be able to start on August 23, 2010. Both day and evening opportunities are available. Pay range from $8.00 - $12.00/hr, depending on educational background. Contact Disability Services at 610-861-4551, or email ktrout@northampton.edu. NCC is EEO/AA.

Manager, Instructional Design
FT position providing leadership in the application of instructional design theories and methodologies to help faculty build and facilitate quality online and hybrid courses. Works closely with faculty to ensure their online and hybrid course content and assessments reflect best practices in online course design, accessibility standards, and copyright policies. Master’s degree in Instructional Design is required. Minimum 3-5 years experience as an instructional designer in an educational setting is strongly preferred. Demonstrated experience with the Quality Matters rubric and process, Blackboard, Elluminate Live, Web 2.0 technologies, and section 50 compliance is preferred. Salary is competitive and the benefits are excellent. Send letter, resume and names, addresses and phone numbers of 3 professional references to Human Resources, Northampton Community College, 335 Green Pond Road, Bethlehem, PA 18020, or email to hr@northampton.edu by 8/31/10. NCC is EEO/AA.

Select Sales

FUN AND UNIQUE DISTRIBUTOR LOOKING FOR SALES PEOPLE
Select Sales is seeking a motivated, energetic sales professional to join our team. This is a straight commissioned sales position.

Select Sales is an established promotional marketing company that bends and molds to meet our customer’s needs. Our team is passionate about what we do and love being part of something exciting.

Prospecting efforts payoff with the Select Sales!! If you want to get noticed more by your prospects, you need to sell for Select Sales.

We are involved in the industry and work hand in hand with supplier reps so that we can stay up to date and present our customers with the newest, coolest, most unique products out there!!

We are seeking a reliable, dedicated individual to work in a fun and fast-paced sales environment.

Candidates must have marketing sales experience, must be articulate and aggressive and possess a clear understanding of the marketing and sales process.

The Senate yesterday voted to approve Financial Regulation yesterday, approving the bill 59-39. The legislation now heads to the House floor, where its approval is expected, before being signed into law by President Obama.

You might have caught it on the blog a couple of days ago, but the Chamber Foundation's $10,000 in grants is mentioned in a story in the Express-Times today.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Last week, we held our first ever Member Benefit Webinar. We have another one scheduled for August 20. If you are already a Chamber member, or are interested in joining, this is a great way to find out what Chamber membership entitles you too. The feedback has been very positive, and its mostly been from already existing members - most were not aware of all that their membership entitled them too.

As I said, the Webinar will occur again on August 20, but until then, we have uploaded the power point for your viewing pleasure.

My mother always told me not to listen to what other people say about me. While useful advice in many respects, her wisdom does not apply to businesses in the social media world. The reputation of a business can rest heavily on its presence in online media – and not just in the outlets that it controls. Internet users may be constantly blogging, tweeting, tagging, or reviewing your company. Are sentiments positive or negative? Who is saying what, and what are they saying? These are some of the questions that you should be able to answer in order to effectively manage your company’s digital image.

Enter Viralheat, a social media monitoring and analytics powerhouse that watches over Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook, video, and the “real time Internet” (everything else). This site not only tracks an impressive amount of information about visitors to your sites, but it also watches what other web users are saying about your company, independent of your social media sites. The digital fly-on-the-wall then compiles enough charts, graphs, and statistics to please any social media manager.

How It Works: All you need to get started with Viralheat is an account on the site. Once you are logged in, you can add a new “profile” for your business. This profile is defined by a set of search keywords related to your business (business name, business type, etc.). As soon as you establish your profile, you will have access to all of the social media statistics that Viralheat can aggregate about your company.

Features/Benefits:- Analytics including what people are most influential in conversations about your company, general conversation sentiment, and “viral” content- Dynamic alerts of major changes in your social media reputation- Ability to reduce scope of statistical analysis to a certain location (what’s the sentiment in Allentown?)

Pricing:The basic Viralheat plan, for individuals is $9.99/month. This is the bare-bones option, and does not include some of the more detailed analytics such as sentiment analysis. To access these features, your company will need at least the $29.99/month Professional Plan, if not the $89.99/month Business Plan. More information on pricing is available here.

Viralheat is definitely a useful tool, but it has a couple caveats that you should consider when deciding whether or not to sign up. Search terms can be hard to define, so chances are that some of the data you pull in may not be specifically related to your site. Also, the site can only pull specific data on Twitter/Google Buzz, Facebook, and videos. The site lumps other networks into the “real-time internet” category. There are other free media monitoring tools, such as socialmention, that can segment searches to look specifically at other networks, such as flickr and MySpace. These free tools may serve your media monitoring purposes just as well as Viralheat, for a lower price. However Viralheat does offer a more comprehensive statistical breakdown than some other free sites, and it is well worth the price for companies looking for a lot of hard numbers.

How are you monitoring your company's social media presence? Leave a comment and let us know!

There are no Chamber events scheduled for today, but join us on Friday, July 23rd for our Annual Chamber Picnic. Contract Marta at martaa@lehighvalleychamber.org to register.

Have a great day!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

As I've mention, a couple of weeks ago, I was able to get to the Online Marketing Summit in Philadelphia. Based on this conference, as well as an ongoing Chamber project with our friends at Enter.net, I started collecting data on mobile downloads and application downloads (or "apps," as they are better known).

The information, quite simply, is fascinating and revolutionary.

During the conference, a presenter from the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative mentioned that, at least in the academic world, studying Social Media is almost becoming passe. The real interest, at least in the academic world, now lies in the realm of mobile. 20% of the adults in the United States have smart-phones...and that number is climbing.

When it comes to app downloads, the numbers are huge. A 2009 survey showed that only 29% of iPhone users had only free apps - meaning that 71% of people have, at one time, paid for apps. Interestingly, the same survey showed that the most popular way people had of finding apps was by looking for them on their own.

In terms of demographics, app users have above average engagement with retail and social media, are 32% more likely than average to belong to households that make more than $100,000 per year and 54% more likely to be in households making $75,000.

The trends are astounding. In 2009, 2.6 billion apps had been downloaded. By 2015, that number is estimated to be 25 billion. When it comes to mobile games, the numbers are absolutely absurd. Mobile games generated $1.1 billion in 2007 - by the end of 2010, that number is set to reach $11 billion.

Sure, all this information is fascinating, but here is the real question - how will it affect your business? Will you need to develop your own app for business? The day may come, and very quickly, where you need to do just that.

Do any of you out there have apps for your business? How about your franchise or competitors? Have you had success with them? We want to hear your thoughts!

Greetings folks:Mary here from the Chamber Foundation - bringing you some Main Street Lehigh Valley happenings...The Chamber Foundation just awarded $10,000 in Community Improvement grants to fourteen communities / boroughs here in the Valley. These particular projects are expected to produce at least $170,000 in additional investments.Just a refresher... the Foundation - the Chamber’s charitable arm - uses donations from the private sector and assistance from the counties to directly fund community development projects in Lehigh Valley’s communities. Up until now, over $78,000 of Foundation funds has contributed to at least $540,000 in community revitalization streetscape, planning, and promotional projects that have benefitted over a dozen municipalities. Please continue reading below for more details on this good news (for the full media release) - including a list of the lucky fourteen.Until next time... don't forget to shop local: invest in your community first!-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------FOURTEEN LEHIGH VALLEY PROJECTS AWARDED CHAMBER’S MAIN STREET GRANTS

Allentown, PA – The Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce Foundation has awarded fourteen Community Improvement grants to assist boroughs and organizations in their community revitalization efforts. This $10,000 investment will supplement nearly $170,000 in additional investment within these downtowns.

President/CEO of the Chamber Tony Iannelli said, “We are so happy that we are able to partner with these communities – to help them improve their business districts. All of this is made possible through the corporate and private donations of Lehigh Valley leaders that understand the importance of healthy downtown districts to the regional economy.”

Types of projects funded include streetscape amenities such as banners, benches, tables, greening, and signs; other allocations include promotional assistance in marketing certain downtown events.

The Foundation allocated $10,000 to boroughs and other organizations that offered the strongest proposals relevant to the Foundation’s mission: improving every main street in the Lehigh Valley through targeted investments in façade improvements, streetscape designs, sidewalk beautification, and other enhancements to the physical appearance of our downtowns and urban centers.

This is the third time that the Foundation has offered this funding assistance through its Main Street Lehigh Valley project. In the past, over $78,000 of Foundation funds has contributed to at least $540,000 in community revitalization streetscape, planning, and promotional projects that have benefitted over a dozen municipalities.

Main Street Lehigh Valley funds are intended to support and generate additional public and private investment in the downtowns and surrounding neighborhoods. The program requires that half of the cost of the proposed project be funded by other community partners. Applications were due in May for projects to be completed by the end of December, 2010.

The Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce Foundation was established as a 501(c)3 in Bethlehem, originally to raise funds for holiday decorations. Now that the Chamber has merged with thirteen regional partners, the Foundation has also grown to help all of its communities. The Chamber’s charitable arm aims to use donations from the private sector and assistance from Lehigh and Northampton counties to directly fund community development projects in Lehigh Valley’s communities.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Having just gotten my credit score over at Free Credit Report, I went looking for some articles on ways that you can boost your credit score.

It's been my experience, so far, that your credit score is determined more by art than science. I am no expert, but fortunately, I know how to Google, and found some interesting tips on ways that you can boost your credit score. Some of these seem like common sense (the number one piece of advice - pay your bills on-time), but some were relatively interesting information. Did you know, for instance, that canceling a credit card can actually hurt your credit score?

Anyway, here are the tips, courtesy of articles from MSN Money and Bankrate.com. Do you have any other tips or information that you'd like to share?

1) Pay down your credit cards.
2) Use your credit cards lightly and keep the balances down. This one is interesting - what is typically reported to credit bureaus is your last statement. So, does that imply that it is better to pay your credit cards before your statement is sent?
3) Check your limits.
4) Use your oldest credit card on occasion. This will make your credit history look older, which improves your score.
5) Build goodwill with your lenders and ask them to erase one late payment.
6) Dispute old negatives.
7) Blitz significant errors.
8) Most lenders have lending rules that are "carved-in-stone." A difference between 698 and 700 could cost you big time, but 760-800 will get you the same terms.
9) Transfer away from cards that are close to their limit or spread out charges on multiple cards.

Friday, July 16, 2010

If you are a Chamber Member, we are happy to help you advertise any job opening. Please E-mail a description and contact information to Mike Schlossberg at MikeS@lehighvalleychamber.org. We publish job openings every Thursday and are happy to help you find the talent that you are looking for!

Instructor – Video Game Design
Must have knowledge of video game history, industry practices, development stages, and design fundamentals. Minimum of a bachelors degree in art, interactive design, game design, computer science, or related field; working knowledge of game engines is a critical requirement for this job (UDK, Blender3d, Unity, Adobe Flash, or a related engine), and experience with 3D modeling and animation is helpful, but not required for this position. Prior college teaching experience a plus. Send cover letter, resume/curriculum vitae, and 3 references to Tom Shillea at tshillea@northampton.edu. NCC is EEO/AA.
Secretary
PT (29.5 hrs/wk) at our Fountain Court site in Bartonsville. Must have excellent computer skills in MSOffice (including access), very good interpersonal skills, and capable of multi-tasking in a busy environment. Also responsible for processing instructor class purchases for non credit Youth and Center for Adult Learning, data entry, and general secretarial tasks. Send resume, cover letter and 3 references to Dee Raneri, Northampton Community College, Suite 8, Rte 611, Bartonsville, PA 18321, or email to draneri@northampton.edu, or fax to 570-688-9708 by 7/15/10. NCC is EEO/AA.
Instructor – Video Game Design
Must have knowledge of video game history, industry practices, development stages, and design fundamentals. Minimum of a bachelors degree in art, interactive design, game design, computer science, or related field; working knowledge of game engines is a critical requirement for this job (UDK, Blender3d, Unity, Adobe Flash, or a related engine), and experience with 3D modeling and animation is helpful, but not required for this position. Prior college teaching experience a plus. Send cover letter, resume/curriculum vitae, and 3 references to Tom Shillea at tshillea@northampton.edu. NCC is EEO/AA.

If you've been by our Bethlehem Chamber office lately, then you've probably noticed that we have, at any given time, about half a dozen college kids running around and working. They are our interns, and they have been incredibly helpful to the various staff members that supervise them. Indeed, interns can be a great benefit to any business. We've had a lot of questions lately about what our interns do and where we get them, so I thought these were questions worth answering here.

What Interns Are: Interns, most of the time, are college kids who are working in an office for credit, experience and/or resume building. They are not paid. They work on specific projects that are assigned to them by supervisors. Typically, they work 10-15 hours a week, but each intern will probably have different requirements.

What Interns Aren't: Copy-machine jockeys. You cannot have an intern do nothing but photo-copying, data entry and coffee making. An intern will work in your office to gain valuable experience. As a general rule of thumb, I never have an intern do work that I wouldn't do myself. Also, keep in mind that if you give an intern nothing but grunt-work, they will likely tell their college - and you will never get an intership from there again.

The Positives: Interns, generally speaking, are energetic and eager to learn. If you give them projects, they typically attack them with gusto. Let me be creative and encourage them to give you open, honest feedback. Having another voice involved with your projects can be an incredible help - if you read this blog regularly, you've likely seen entries by Stephanie, my intern - and I cannot tell you how much easier she has made my life and how much better she has made the projects that I work on.

The Negatives: Interns aren't on auto-pilot. Like any other staffer, they require time and effort to supervise and develop projects. If you don't have this kind of time, or you don't have extra work to give (this is sometimes harder then it sounds), and intern may not be right for you.

Where can I get them? Thankfully, we have seven colleges in the Lehigh Valley, and all have active career development centers. Here are a list of where to find them on the web:

Also, don't forget to reach out to the Chairs of specific departments - if you an accounting firm, send an E-mail to the chair of the Accounting Department - if you run a small business, E-mail the head of the business department, etc.

In state-wide news, despite some objections with her answers to questions during her confirmation hearing, Senator Specter will vote to confirm Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. New reports indicate that Senator Specter has told the Obama Administration that he would like a job with the administration after his term as Senator ends.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

If you are a Chamber Member, we are happy to help you advertise any job opening. Please E-mail a description and contact information to Mike Schlossberg at MikeS@lehighvalleychamber.org. We publish job openings every Thursday and are happy to help you find the talent that you are looking for!

a. failure to complete the above in the first 90 days may result in immediate termination

b. the performance management policy will be followed for failure to comply

Summary of duties and responsibilities:

Follow Alpha’s standard of Safety, Housekeeping, Quality and Production in an efficient and safe manner as possible. You will be responsible for the in-process and testing of bottles. Audit and assist inspector packers is visual inspection of bottles. Audit the process, the cleanliness and the organization of the plant and report any quality problems and non-conformance to the shift supervisor immediately. You must be able to work as part of a team.

Primary duties and responsibilities:

• perform bottle checks and visual inspections according to SOP 9.10

• When a defective bottle or any non-conformance are found, place the bottles on hold according to SOP 11.1B. Inform shift supervisor of any quality problems immediately.

• Perform a thorough quality check on the first set of bottles of a production run according to SOP 9.3 B. Inform the shift supervisor of any quality problems and when these bottles are approved.

• Print case labels per SOP 9.5B

• Be continuously looking around the plant for any potential quality problems, non-conformance, deviation of standard procedures by other employees, unidentified products or materials or any other deficiencies in the plant. Report any of these problems to the shift supervisor immediately.

• Keep work area clean, QA desk and label printer clean and organized at all times.

• Communicate verbally and in writing with other quality inspectors. Inform in-coming quality inspectors of any quality problems you encounter on your shift.

• Once per shift, check all weight scales being used to weigh the bulk packed bottles by using the 20 lbs standard weight.

• Help train other QA inspectors on the job as needed.

• Perform any other tasks assigned to you by the quality manager or shift supervisor, time permitting, such as reworking product on hold, auditing a batch of product or any other assigned tasks.

Education, prior work experience and specialized skills and knowledge:

• The position will require basic math skills

• The position will require basic communication skills

• GED or equivalent

Physical environment/working conditions:

• Stooping/bending - 12 hours and up to 14 hours

• Reaching - 12 hours and up to 14 hours

• Walking -12 hours and up to 14 hours

• Twisting - 12 hours and up to 14 hours

• Lifting TBD

Equipment used:

• For all necessary equipment, see skills flex

• Material handling

• Downstream equipment

• Quality equipment

Job Title: Operator Packer $11.85-$14.00/hrDepartment: Production

Report to:

• Shift Supervisor

• Production Manager

• HR Manager

• Plant Manager

Schedule:

• Full time

• See shift schedule for actual assigned shift

• as over time is needed.

Job entry requirements:

• Pre-employment physical

• Pass drug screen

• background check clearance

Job continuation requirements:

• must complete skill level 1 assessment within 30 days

• must complete skill level 2 assessment within 60 days

• must be qualified in 90 days

• must follow work rules and policies

a. failure to complete the above in the first 90 days may result in immediate termination

b. the performance management policy will be followed for failure to comply

Summary of duties and responsibilities:

Perform all tasks involved in the production of Alpha Packaging’s products. Follow Alpha’s standard of Safety, Housekeeping, Quality and Production in an efficient and safe manner as possible. Must be able to work as part of a team.

Primary duties and responsibilities:

• conduct him/herself in a safe manner

• ensure GMP/housekeeping is maintained in assigned area

• complete work assigned to a level required by market conditions

• accurately complete required documentation

• ability to use computers to enter data required

• ability to conduct basic arithmetic

• ability to read and understand work instructions

• able to use basic tools

• ability to do low level troubleshooting

• ensure that the area is safe for daily work duties

• at the beginning of the shift, communicate with the off going shift about issues the shift was having.

• Must be able to communicate to co-workers and leadership chain

• Must be able to recognize and communicate unsafe situations

• Must be able to start and stop machines correctly without supervision

• Must be able to identify parts in machines and tools

• Must be able to complete work tasks at rates assigned

• Must be able to complete all end of line paperwork

• Able to communicate issues with production and equipment

• Must use all proper PPE

• Once the box or bag is sealed, place the correct label on it and date and initial the box with a black marker

• Perform all quality checks as required by SOP 9.10 at the quality station for your assigned machines. Each bottle must be stood up during a check.

• As time permits, and as instructed by your supervisor, rework product on hold

• Perform any other duties as assigned to you by your shift supervisor that you have been trained on.

• It is the expectation that all production workers will be available to work in all areas of production

Education, prior work experience and specialized skills and knowledge:

A few weeks ago, I posted an interview with one of my acquaintances on the subject of the social network/game/discount offering medium called Foursquare. Why such a complicated description? Foursquare is still relatively new on the social media scene. In my opinion the site hasn’t quite found its niche. On one hand, Foursquare is a basic social tool – users “check in” when they visit certain locations, allowing their friends to see what places they frequent at what times. On the other hand, Foursquare functions as a sort of “king of the mountain” game – the user that checks in most frequently at a certain venue becomes “mayor” of that place. Users can earn other honors, called “badges,” for various activities related to the frequency and specific site of check ins. On a third, mutant hand, Foursquare allows businesses to reward customers who check in to their establishments. For example, the “Mayor” of the Carrabba’s Italian Grill in Easton will receive a complimentary dessert with the purchase of an entrée.

So, what can this young, three-handed being do for your business? First, you need to make sure that your company is on the map. Chances are, if you are a local restaurant, bar, store, or similar business, users may already be checking in to your venue. You can go to http://foursquare.com/businesses/ and search for your business to see if it is already in the foursquare mix. If it is, you can claim your venue through a link on the site page. If not, you can create a page for your site, and link it to your business’s Twitter feed (full instructions available here).

Once you have claimed your business, you have access to a wide variety of tracking and promotional tools. These include:- An impressive page of real-time statistics – who checks in, when, how often, who they are telling on Facebook and Twitter, and more- Create promotions and specials for frequent visitors- Foursquare window clings to place in your store to promote your Foursquare presence- Real-time advertising to foursquare users who are near your location (this one is pretty neat – Foursquare will notify users in your immediate area that you have promotions related to the application, and suggest that they stop by to check them out)

Sounds pretty impressive in theory, but is Foursquare really the next big thing? While I couldn’t find a hard number of total users, a scan of several news articles about the site puts the number of foursquare users at several hundred thousand – and growing. This is a far cry from the 100 million active Facebook users, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?

At this point in time, I can’t really give one definitive yea or nay on Foursquare. Regardless of whether or not you plan to use the site for your business, you should definitely claim your venue on Foursquare, in order to stay on top of your company’s social media presence. You should base your decision to engage further with the site on how many customers have checked in to your location. You may also want to examine the Foursquare activity of businesses that are in your vicinity – if a lot of locals seem to be checking in with your neighbor, then they will probably be more willing to check in with you as well. However, if your customers aren’t using Foursquare, then you will have little to gain from devoting a large amount of time to the site. In the future, the media environment may change and Foursquare may become a more useful tool for your business – it all depends on how customers are utilizing the social network.

Do you use Foursquare, for your company or your own personal enjoyment? Leave a comment and let your fellow businesses know how Foursquare is playing out in the Lehigh Valley.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Small businesses have to account for a large number of financial transactions, especially when they are first getting started. Managing personal finances is tricky enough, and expanding those records to a small business adds even more complexity to the accounting. Can the ever-powerful Internet possibly come to the aid of business owners? Of course it can – or, at least, it is trying to. InDinero the web-based money management tool, was launched last week in an attempt to fill this need. Although the program is just getting started, it has already generating a fair amount of buzz on tech blogs such as Mashable

How it works:inDinero is NOT a bank account. Rather, it aggregates the income and spending data from multiple business accounts, and organizes all of the information in plain and easy-to-read graphs and charts. Business owners allow the site to access their financial records, and inDinero starts crunching the numbers. Some managers may be turned off by the fact that the application requires access to financial information, but it should be noted that multiple third-party firms have verified the security of the site. inDinero cannot move money from account to account; it just shows you what money is where.

Features and benefits:- Access account information from anywhere with an Internet connection- Daily data synchronization with multiple accounts- Set up notifications and alerts as cash flows in and out of your business, and to monitor for cashflow gaps- Allows both managers and their CPAs/bookkeepers to access the account- Track spending trends and find out where your business is spending the most- Graphs to identify most profitable products, as well as to predict future cashflow gaps- Export financial data to .CSV files for use in Excel and Quickbooks

Pricing:For a single owner business/entrepreneurship with up to 50 transactions per month, inDinero is free. inDinero is $29.95/month for small businesses with 500 transactions or less per month, and $99.95/month for unlimited transactions (for large companies). While the top-of-the-line package is a bit pricey, the small business option may be an attractive and useful tool for companies that are just getting started.

Do you use any online applications to manage your personal or business finances? Which ones? Leave a comment on the blog and let us know!